Pendragon

Chapter 16

MRS. MIGGS WAS wrong. Meggie awoke alert, full of energy-no pounding head, no queasy stomach, not a single fuzzy residual thought in her brain. She felt strong and fit except for the ache between her legs and just a slight feeling of silliness. Actually, she believed she could still dance a bit. Had she really said she could play the fiddle for her and Mrs. Miggs?

Oh, dear.

Blessed hell. She'd forgotten-she was married. She had a husband, a husband who had behaved very peculiarly last night.

Meggie turned slowly, fully expecting to see Thomas lying beside her, on his back, still snoring, but Thomas was gone, none of him anywhere to be seen. And he'd been gone for a while. His pillow wasn't even warm.

She looked at the small clock on the mantel. It was only seven o'clock in the morning. He'd left her very early indeed.

When she'd eased into bed long after midnight, her husband of one day-and one half of one night-had been sprawled on his belly, arms flung wide, taking up much more than half the bed. A single cover was to his waist, leaving him bare the rest of the way up. There was a lot of the rest of the way up to see. She'd seen the front of him and now she was seeing the back. Without considering what she was doing, Meggie raised her candle higher. He was a big man, long and smooth, not hairy on the back like he was on the front, very nicely made-she'd give him that-but nothing else. For a moment, no, just for the quickest of an instant, she wanted to pull the cover down, but she got her brain back, and backed away. She finally doused the candle, made herself into a ball, and hugged the side of the bed until her fuzzy brain became so vague, so empty of anything save visions of swimming in the sea, only she wasn't really wet or even swimming, just there somehow in the water and it was cradling her, making her feel just fine. When she fell asleep, she slept deeply, not a single disagreeable dream to wake her in the night.

She sat up when she saw the door slowly opening, and there he was, her husband, just standing there, one booted foot inside the room, looking toward the bed, looking at her. A man had just opened the door to her chamber, hadn't even bothered to knock and now he was in the same bedchamber as she was and he was looking at her. It was astounding, this husband business. The power it gave men over women and the most private parts of their lives. Actually, she'd had some power as well when he'd taken off his clothes for her to see him the previous night. Now that she thought about that, her skin turned warm, particularly the skin on her face.

'Meggie,' he said, not moving from the doorway.

He was smart, she thought, not to come any closer. 'Shall I pack your dressing gown in my valise?'

'What?'

'Shall I pack-

'Yes, I see that you're wearing it. Shall I ask you why?'

'I couldn't very well go downstairs to get more champagne wearing my nightgown, one, I might add, that didn't make it past the bed and to safety and is thus spotted with my blood and with you as well.'

He appeared flummoxed for a moment at this stark talk, then said, 'I see. You know, a girl shouldn't speak so openly about intimate matters, particularly her virginal blood and her husband's seed.'

He would swear he saw her lips form a word, and he knew that word was moron.

'Why did you go downstairs for more champagne?'

'You haven't seen Mrs. Miggs this morning?'

He shook his head.

'I finished the champagne you ordered up for my fantasy dinner-actually my lovely fantasy dinner spun out of a stupid girl's head. It turned into quite something else, didn't it?'

'As to that, I don't wish to speak of it. I, ah, washed out your nightgown when I awoke this morning and hung it over the back of the chair. It should be completely dry shortly.'

'Thank you. You have erased the evidence-very wise of you.'

'The champagne left on the table wasn't enough for you?'

Meggie began swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Her toes were a good six inches off the floor. She said in a chatty voice, 'How very odd. You sound all stiff and disapproving, like a father whose child has sadly disappointed him. Surely that is an absurdity after what you did.' He would swear again that her mouth formed the word moron. He also realized that she was on the edge of saying it, and knew he couldn't allow it. Maybe he deserved it, but that wasn't for her to decide.

He said, very quickly, 'You are not my child. However, as my wife, you are my responsibility. Naturally I am distressed. It cannot be wise of you to drink so very much.'

'You are,' she said quite clearly, 'a buffoon.'

He wondered if a buffoon was better or worse than a moron and said, 'You shouldn't insult your husband,' and knew it was pathetic. At that moment he wanted more than anything to yell at her, curse at her, demand why she'd married him when she loved her damned almost cousin Jeremy Stanton-Greville, who was already married, his wife pregnant. And then, of course, that was exactly the reason Meggie had married him. She couldn't have Jeremy, so why not take a man who obviously wanted her? But he didn't yell, didn't curse her. He didn't say anything at all. If a man didn't have his pride, he didn't have much of anything at all.

Meggie whistled, a nice fresh spring tune about a boy and a girl and a field full of violets.

'No,' he said slowly, 'now that I've listened to your song, now that I see the blood in your eye, I suppose that the champagne wasn't enough. You went downstairs to drink more champagne?'

'That's right. Mrs. Miggs and I shared a bottle.'

She wished he would leave, maybe lend her the carriage and let Tim McCulver drive her back to Glenclose-on- Rowan. She was, she realized, succumbing again to melancholia, something she recognized very well ever since that fateful morning when Jeremy had met her in the park with perfect Charlotte at his side, a sinking of spirits made only more profound after Jeremy had confessed that his loud and obnoxious act had been for her benefit to ease her pain, damn him and damn her father for knowing of her pain in the first place. And Charlotte, of course, really was a goddess, blast her.

Was Thomas that different from Jeremy? Was he in fact the real ass while Jeremy was only the pretend ass? Had he hidden his true colors until he'd gotten her to the altar? Her spirits fell lower, if that were possible.

However, when he said, cold outrage in his voice, 'May I ask how many men were in the taproom to see you swilling champagne, wearing nothing but my dressing gown?' Meggie immediately perked up.

She said in a voice more serious than her father the vicar's when confronted with an unrepentant sinner as she tapped her fingertips against her chin, 'Let me think. Oh, I don't think there were more than ten men drinking in the taproom. Were there?' She tapped, tapped, tapped, all thoughtful. 'You know, it was very late. Surely most men had gone to their homes, mauled their wives, sprawled out on their bellies, taking up most of the bed, happy as clams, snoring to the ceiling.'

'If they were on their bellies, then they would be snoring to the mattress.' He held up his hand knowing a fine display of wit was ready to burst from her mouth, 'No, you don't have to tell me-you were speaking metaphorically. Now, you're telling me that you went downstairs wearing only my damned dressing gown, your damned feet bare- and you drank champagne with ten damned men looking on?'

'Ah, I can see from your spate of curses, repetitive but nonetheless curses just the same, that you're winding yourself up to really blast me now. I pray you won't forget that Mrs. Miggs was there.'

She was sneering at him, playing him for the fool, and doing it quite well. No hope for it and so he climbed down from his high horse and sighed. 'No, you're lying to me and you don't do it well, Meggie. So there were no men there, then.'

'To be certain I'm not lying to you, you will have to ask Mrs. Miggs, won't you?'

'No, I don't think so. You're not a very good liar. You will stop mocking me, Meggie. A wife shouldn't be disrespectful to her husband.'

'Well, then, should a man be allowed to do whatever pleases him to do to his new wife?'

He wanted to yell out that damned Jeremy's name to her, but he didn't, said only, 'I don't wish to speak about that.'

'I see. You said a wife shouldn't be disrespectful to her husband. Perhaps you could prepare a list for me for all